Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/94

82 they assailed without mercy, by no means sparing themselves, although their remarks consisted of the most biting sarcasms, being levelled more especially against those who .had thrown away their property, and squandered more of their substance than it was advisable to spend, in festivals, suppers, &c. When all the members of thfe Company were assembled, and this discourse had come to an end, there appeared to them their patron, Sant’ Antonio, who, delivering them from the Poor-house, conducted them into a chamber, magnificently prepared, where they all supped joyously together.

That being done, Sant’ Antonio pleasantly advised them, to the end that they might keep safely out of the Poorhouse, and not make waste of their property by superfluous expense—he recommended them, I say, to content themselves for the future with one great feast in the year, that done, their patron Saint disappeared from amongst them. Kor did the Company fail to obey the injunction thus given; for many years they had only one supper annually; but this was a very magnificent one, with a dramatic representation by way of close; and at various times there were performed by them, as we have related in the life of Aristotile da San Gallo, the Calandra of Messer Bernardo, Cardinal di Bibbiena, the Suppositi and the Cassaria of Ariosto, the Clizia, and the Mandragola of Macchiavello. with many others.

On a certain time, when Francesco and Domenico Pucellai were Signori of the feast, they performed the Harpies of Fineo; the Signore who succeeded them causing a Disputation on the Trinity by certain Philosophers to be represented, and therein they exhibited Sant’ Andrea, who commanded that all Heaven should be opened to the gaze of the beholders, with all the choirs of Angels. A most truly beautiful and extraordinary spectacle it was. By Giovanni Gaddi, who received aid from Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea del Sarto, and Giovann Francesco Rustici, the punishment of Tantalus, in the infernal regions, was represented; and while he feasted the Company, they all appeared in the habiliments proper to the various Gods of Olympus, exhibiting besides all the remainder of the Fable with many fanciful inventions of gardens, the Elysian fields, effectively